To J. F. Royle   14 August [1847]

Down, Farnborough, Kent.

Aug. 14th

Dear Royle

I am extremely much obliged to your kind remembrance of your offer to lend me the Books.1 Our carrier goes only once a week; he shall call on Thursday morning: I left an old Box at your house, which will probably be the safest way of sending the books. I will take the greatest care of this valuable work and will return it as soon as I can possibly go through the vols. Nothing but the impossibility of anywhere else getting the work, would have made me make so cool a request.

Thanks for your offer of putting me down as a Candidate for the Royal Soc.,2 but as I am scarcely ever able to dine out anywhere, I fear it would be quite useless to me.

I remember in your Production Resources,3 your refering with praise to Blacklock’s Treatise on sheep,4 would you trust me with that, also, if in your possession?

With many thanks | Believe me | Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

1
See letters to J. F. Royle, [12 April – 17 May 1847] and [16 April – 21 May 1847]. CD records having finished reading the Transactions, the Proceedings, and the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India on 25 August 1847. His comment is ‘All. Very little’ (DAR 119; Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV). The Transactions ceased publication after volume eight (1841). The Proceedings were published between 1838 and June 1842 , thereafter they were succeeded by the Journal.
2
CD had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1839 and here refers to the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society. Royle had invited CD to become one of the first members of the club (see letter to J. F. Royle, [16 April – 21 May 1847], n.6). Since the limit of forty-seven members had been reached by 3 June (Bonney 1919, pp. 3–4) Royle must have offered to submit CD’s name for a future vacancy. CD eventually became a member on 24 April 1854 (Bonney 1919, p. 39).
3
CD had read and abstracted Royle 1840 by 20 May 1842 (DAR 119; Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV). CD quoted from it in Natural selection, p. 286, and in Variation 2: 306, when discussing the effect of changes of climate on domestic animals.
4
Blacklock 1838. This work is not listed in CD’s notes of ‘books read’, but in the section of the notebook labelled ‘Books to be read’ there is a note: ‘Blacklock admirable little Treatise on sheep. good [interl] quotation in Royle’ (DAR 119: 17v.; Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV). CD refers to Royle 1840, pp. 163–8, in which Ambrose Blacklock’s conclusions on the improvement of breeds of sheep in India are discussed.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1108,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1108